The meaning of life is forty-two, you know...This chappie has to be dedicated to Ryder Windham, the dude whose novelization enabled me to copy the important part of the script of Return of the Jedi. Thanks. To Arya; an AU is a storyline that goes somewhere different than the actual storyline of the, in these cases Star Wars, movies and books go. You'll have to read more to find out who the "bounty hunter" is...

Chapter 42: Random Reflections of Fire

In the shadows of Had Abbadon, Luke conferred with the Force and the universe-spanning machine. The rust-colored rock around him caught Darth Vader's scarlet lightsaber and reflected it on Luke's face, outlining tension. But this was the place, and now was the time, so Luke fell into the Force that crackled, fuzzed, and told him to work the machinery in this way, so that it affected the world in ways it had never really been meant to...

Fueled by the Force, utterly without fear, Luke composed himself and waited. He picked a leg up to ease the muscles' strain, put it back down, scraped his right shoulder against the rough rock. But he did not much notice all this, because he was in the Force, and the Force was manipulating the universe-machine, moving the louvers and moving the insides, moving the possibilities. For just a second he was not surprised, because the Force and its result the timeline of the world had not caught up with him.

Luke said, firmly, "I will not fight you."

Darth Vader's voice rumbled as he paced, carefully formed the bass of the words. "Give yourself to the dark side. It is the only way you can save your friends. " Pause. Luke could feel the metal catwalk beneath his feet, in the narrow place below the Emperor's balcony. Vader spoke slowly. "Yes, your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for...sister! So, you have a twin sister!" His voice had gone exultant. Luke felt cold in the pit of his stomach, cold dread. "Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now, his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the dark side, than maybe she will."

Leia, down on Endor! But no...that was the past (/present). He knew he was his present self, and there was the real present on the edges of his vision, gray-silver metal meeting dark red stone. So this is what the machine has done, so this is the Unifying Force--this was part of that plan all along. It was like he had known the future but would not reveal it to his conscious mind. He let the fear and anger take him--Darth Vader would not destroy Leia's life (/again)!

"No!" He jumped from hiding and the two lightsaber caught together, hissing, and now it was Luke who drove Darth Vader back with strikes both swift and hard. They fought to the bridge over the innards of the Death Star, Luke feeling more raw power every moment. Vader weakened and fell when Luke could almost feel his blood boiling, and a surgically precise cut took the Sith Lord's left hand from his wrist and revealed not muscle and bone beneath, but leather and wire.

The Emperor crowed form his throne. "Good! Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side!"

Wide-eyed, Luke flexed his right hand as if the gloved synthskin and circuits were not his own. In memory and conscious present he thought; I will not become like my father. Like Darth Vader.

"Never." He threw his lightsaber away with a flick of his wrist of flesh and the weapon clattered away into the darkness. "I'll never turn to the dark side. You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

Hatred perfectly matched the etched scars in Palpatine's face. The Luke of the real, alternate present could sense that the wicked ruler knew of the deception, of the shift in "normal", but he too was caught up and could do nothing. Now his reedy voice spoke every slow word of threat dripping with relish and measured scorn. "So be it...Jedi."

Palpatine came down the stairs, black robes unfurling like wings. "If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed."

Present Luke knew what was coming. Past Luke did not. One body felt all the pain and could only partially divorce from it, when the blue forks of lightning poured from the Emperor's fingers.

Luke found himself thrown against railings and round outcroppings that didn't actually exist, the pain spiking, striking, crawling, creeping through him in jolts and spears.

Vader struggled up and moved... "Young fool. Only now, at the end, do you understand." That voice would haunt Luke's rare nightmares and waking hours' shadows. Pain...Luke shuddered and tried to dig his fingertips into the floor... "Your feeble skills are no match for the powers of the dark side! You have paid the price for your lack of vision!" ...the world smelled like lightning... "Father, please, help me!" Anguish. Blue in shades of blinding.

"Now, young Skywalker...you will die." Almost pity, false evil pity, in the Emperor's voice. Pain...a black movement and undulating scream as 'Vader threw the Emperor into the shaft the bridge spanned, taking the lightning that still branched from Palpatine's fingers to the human bone' the pain, blessed Force, shut off.

Heat. Luke first noticed the heat when he returned quickly to normalcy, and then that the opening of the great lava pit was inches away where the steel railings had been. The sluggish lava in the pits base had begun to boil. Real replaced confusion replaced pain, and Luke staggered up and across the fire-beaten span of rock where Darth Vader lay. Again he fell by his father's side, the pain of final-seeming loss more than eclipsing lightning-burn. He knelt, put his hands over the fallen body and searched for a sigh of life in the forever dead metal eyes.

Vader said, electronic breath muted, "Luke...help me, take this mask off."

He didn't want to. Not again. But he did; with tears burning his eyes his hands found the release edges of the black helmet.

He had set the first curved plate aside when the freedom of present-reality was realized. He could no longer bound as a watcher in the Force! It could give him this chance...
Luke took a breath, and dove into his father's spirit. The Force bade them mesh for a moment--images, others' memories, streamed past and into him but he paid no attention to them, and searched for the metaphysical cure to Anakin Skywalker's physical weakness. But then Luke felt a slight touch on his shoulder and focused, incredulous, on the mundane realms. This chance--!

Anakin was looking at him now through the black lenses, and his hand just brushed Luke's shoulder. No.

Shock. "But you'll die!"

The Force said calm. Anakin said, "Nothing can stop that now. Just, for once, let me look on you...with my own eyes."

Like a droid, Luke unlatched the front portion of Vader's mask and laid it on the rock beside him. The ledge trembled as if with import. There again was the shriveled, pale face, red and blue ugly scars, blue eyes now sunken and almost colorless. Luke could almost feel nothing, but there was the double sorrow and he could not control or enjoy it. Why...?

Anakin might have smiled, and said, "Now go...my son. Leave...me."

"No! I have to save you." Luke's voice crackled.

"You already...have, Luke. You were right about me. Tell your sister, you were right..."and Anakin Skywalker's eyes closed for the last time.

For a moment Luke paused there, his forehead touching Anakin's dusty armor plating. He could feel the forces stirred, physical and psychic, by Emperor Palpatine's demise...but in so many ways they were nothing to his own pain.

Luke stood, climbed the stairs limping lightly and picked up the universe-machine from the emperor's throne. The Force secured his battered body as he came down the stairs again; he noticed the energy was flowing and healed as before. Luke felt strong, old, and as if a hole had been redug somewhere in his core. He retrieved his lightsaber from the edge of the lava river, where it almost burnt his hand, but physical pain could not touch him. He replaced the helmet that had given Anakin Skywalker his life for the past many years, because that had been how it had been. Luke left the cavern feeling tremors deep below the surface of the fire and rock where the emperor had fallen, and there was something like bitter triumph in his eyes.

He walked outside into the open cold. The sky, the high rocks, looked the same as before. The Imperial shuttle gleamed at the fringes of a small base beyond a collection of natural spires.

This then would (/again) be a funeral pyre; Luke found it ironic, bittersweet, yet perfect. Again they had both come out of the fire standing straight.

Luke could be seen now as a dark man standing in front of the tower of stone. He delved into the Force, and inside, the lava ran. The pit, stilled tinged with blue lightning, boiled and swelled.

The hollowed mountain erupted. Lava shot from the high apex in red and yellow shards of sparks, and then beneath this the black rock shell thinned and cracked and spilled. Luke stood with his head bent, hands folded under his arms, letting the heat wash over him.